1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet material dispensing apparatus and method. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for dispensing sheet material from at least one source of sheet material.
2. Description of Related Art
A number of different types of sheet materials are dispensed from dispensers. Typically they are wound into a roll either with or without a core to provide a maximum amount of material in a relatively small amount of space. Some examples of these materials include paper towels, toilet tissue, wrapping paper, aluminum foil, wax paper, and plastic wrap. Rolled sheet materials are typically dispensed from dispensers having structure for allowing the roll of sheet material to rotate while the material is removed from the roll. Although these dispensers have been in existence for a long period of time, some of them have many drawbacks and disadvantages.
In many conventional dispensers for sheet material, a user must rotate a crank or move a lever each time the user desires to remove material from the dispenser. This crank or lever typically rotates a roller mechanism for feeding the sheet material from the dispenser. Although these types of dispensers are effective at dispensing sheets of material, a user must make physical contact with the crank or lever each time the user desires to dispense the sheet material from the dispenser. For example, during a single day in an extremely busy washroom, hundreds or even thousands of users may physically contact a dispenser to dispense paper toweling therefrom. This leads to possible transfer of germs and a host of other health concerns associated with the spread of various contaminants from one user to another.
Another problem associated with conventional dispensers is that of maintaining an adequate supply of the rolled sheet material in the dispenser. In one type of dispensing system, a housing contains a single roll of material during dispensing. This type of dispenser requires frequent monitoring by a service attendant to determine when substantially all of the material has been dispensed so that a new roll of material may be loaded in the dispenser. When the new roll is loaded, the partially consumed roll is often discarded in place of the new roll, resulting in the waste of a significant amount of usable material left on the partially consumed roll.
In an attempt at solving the problem of maintaining an adequate supply of sheet material, some conventional dispensers have a transfer mechanism allowing for subsequent dispensing from multiple rolls of sheet material. Although these types of dispensers are sometimes effective at dispensing substantially all of the material from each of the rolls, they are often very complex, leading to increased cost and reduced reliability.
Lack of control of the length of material dispensed is another problem associated with some conventional dispensers. For example, some conventional dispensers include a cutter allowing a user to select a particular length of sheet material before cutting it away from the remainder of the roll of material. Because a continuous sheet of material can be rapidly removed from these types of dispensers, more material than is necessary may be removed from the dispenser, resulting in waste.
In an effort to overcome these problems, conventional dispensers include automatic cutting knives or blades, which cut a predetermined length of sheet material. However, due to their design, dispensers of these types are often noisy and bulky.
Further attempts have been made to limit the amount of sheet material continuously dispensed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,526 to Moody, and pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/851,937 to Moody, filed on May 6, 1997, the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference, disclose a system for dispensing individual segments of sheet material from a roll of sheet material having perforated tear lines separating the individual segments. Pulling an end-most segment of the sheet material tears the end-most segment away from the remaining material along a perforated tear line separating the end-most segment from the remainder of the material. Although this type of dispenser is effective, additional features such as multiple roll capacity are lacking.
In light of the foregoing, there is a need in the art for an improved dispenser and method for dispensing sheet material.